CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENWhen the door was shut behind them Mirrie gave her eyes a last vigorous rub and stood on tiptoe to look at herself in the oval glass which hung over the mantelpiece. It had a faded gold frame, and it didn’t give back a very good reflection. That was one of the things she didn’t understand about Field End, and Abbottsleigh, and the Pondesburys’ place, which was called Reynings. There were a lot of shabby old things in all these houses, and instead of throwing them away and getting new ones the people they belonged to seemed to be proud of how old they were. And they didn’t call them shabby, they said they were antiques. Johnny had said it to her about this very mirror. She couldn’t see herself properly in it at all, but what she did see was enough to make it quite plain
